Giga Metals And Mitsubishi To Develop Turnagain Nickel Deposit in Canada

Junior Giga Metals and global trading and investment company Mitsubishi Corp agreed on Monday to form a joint venture, Hard Creek Nickel Corp, to develop the Turnagain nickel-cobalt deposit in northern British Columbia, according to foreign media reports. As part of the deal, Mitsubishi will pay C $8 million ($6.2 million) in cash for a 15 percent stake in the joint venture. Giga will receive an 85% equity stake in Hard Creekin exchange for all assets related to its core asset, the Turnagain project. It will also be the project manager.

Giga Metals will conduct a pre-feasibility study (PFS) for the project, which is expected to be completed in the first half of 2023. The company focuses on metals critical to modern batteries, particularly those used in electric vehicles and energy storage. The deposit is described as one of the largest untapped resources of nickel sulfide and cobalt in the world. Giga and Mitsubishi say they intend to make Turnagain one of the greenest and most environmentally friendly nickel projects in the world. Hard Creek will continue the Canadian company's work to explore the feasibility of tailings sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for a carbon-neutral project. The sequestration technology, which turns silicate tailings into carbonate minerals, has been tested by the company for nearly a year.

Turnreach's Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for 2020 estimated the carbon footprint of surface mining operations at 2.24 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per tonne of concentrated nickel produced, which Jarvis said was an order of magnitude lower than the global average of 25.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per tonne of nickel. The PEA envisages an open pit mine with an average annual production of 33,000 tonnes of nickel concentrate and 1,962 tonnes of cobalt concentrate, yielding a total production of 1.23 million tonnes of nickel concentrate and 72,592 tonnes of cobalt concentrate over a 37-year mine life. The initial capital cost was $1.4 billion and $2 billion was budgeted to maintain capital over the life of the mine. Based on prices of $7.50 per pound for nickel and $22.30 per pound for cobalt, the study Outlines an IRR of 4.9% after tax. The initial capital expenditure can be recouped in less than 15 years.